LETTERBOXD

Look what I've done.

Click on the image to follow me around. Reviews will be a lot more brief and casual than they have been on this here blog just because people's attention spans are totally in the toilet these days. Thanks, Youtube!

MY NAME IS DEATH

Damn.

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NOW SPINNING: ANCINE'S DEATH HYMS

 

I'm always on the lookout for creepy music to listen to late at night when I'm reading, writing, or self-medicating from the horrors of being alive in the Year of our Nonsense 2024. Enter artist Mike Giallo, also known as Ancine, with a collection of creepy music that fits that bill. 

Similar in style to Lonesome Wyatt and the Holy Spooks, another artist I've covered a few times on this blog over the years, Ancine's debut EP, Death Hymns: Book of Desolation, treads similar ground while bringing with it a grungier and fuzzier experience.

From the artist's bio:

Morose, raw, and dark. From the land of H.P. Lovecraft, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and the birthplace of Edgar Allan Poe, Ancine delivers Gothic Americana with a decided New England focus. Mixing delta blues, dissonant reverb-drenched goth rock, and just a bit of Nashville twang, Ancine’s sole member, Mike Giallo, has created a visceral, yet hauntingly beautiful form of American roots music with a deep admiration for the macabre.

Death Hymns: Book of Desolation is now streaming on Spotify and Bandcamp for your listening (dis)pleasure. I encourage you to follow the artist and see what other nightmares he dredges up in the future. Could a Herbert West: Re-Animator concept album be far off? A boy can dread.

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HALLOWEEN TUNES '23

The yearly Halloween tradition. Click through below to access the full 2023 playlist along with all those from years past.

1800's BEER ADS ARE THE G.O.A.T.

I found this series of brewery ads from the late 1800s on the Library of Congress website while doing some research on a project unrelated to bock beer and goats. The LOC is like the tumblr rabbit hole of public domain materials; before you know it, hours are lost while searching the most random terms. 

As for why bock beer was once, or still is, synonymous with goats, allow me to lazily lift an explanation from the website of Anchor Brewing in San Francisco:

There’s a lot of lore surrounding bock beer. What is it? What’s up with the goat? How did it get its name? Is it really made from the residue at the bottom of the tank?

The beer we now know as bock originated in the Northern German city of Einbeck, probably as far back as the 1400s. By the 1600s it was being brewed in the Munich area of Southern Germany. The name “Einbeck” was pronounced as “Einbock” in the Bavarian accent of the region – and “einbock” means “billy goat” in German. Shortened to “bock,” the name remains with us today, as does the visual pun of the goat on the label.

Some of these are definitely destined to become wall art somewhere in my abode...bulbous, pendulum-like goat balls notwithstanding.